Decent Sound Card

[Blindrage]

I had the soundblaster live which seemed fine with all games. I don't have it anymore. Would you recommend me just getting that again or going to another card? I don't wanna spend more than between $50 and $100 and only that if it really makes a difference. Playing Doom 3 and games like that.

 

[folken]

Get an Audigy 2 or Audigy 2 ZS. You will see a major difference in movies and newer games especially if you have surround sound. DD, DTS, and EAX4 make a difference

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[BrandtP]

I had an SB Live that served me well since 1997 when it was released. But I wanted more, so I got the Audigy 2 ZS and it was a nice choice. I don't get the periodic crackling as I did before and the sound quality is just better.

However, in terms of Doom 3 I'm not sure if you'll see a difference performance wise since it uses the CPU not the sound card to process the sound.

 

[Codesmith]

I am still using my 4-5? year old Sound Blaster Live 5.1 and see no pressing reason to upgrade.

I never had any suttering problems in games, and I don't think an extra 2-5 fps in a game is worth the upgrade.

For DVDs/DivX I output via SPDIF to my Pioneer Reciever, so for those purposes a cheap $20 cmedia with digital out would work just as well.

However if it died I probably would spend $69 to replace it with an Audigy 2 ZS OEM.

Actually I would get the Audigy 2 Value OEM since I will always use my reciever for DD and DTS decoding.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Codesmith on 02/06/05 05:00 PM.</EM></FONT></P>